Gruvi Weekly Digest #8 — A weekly catch up on what we found interesting at Gruvi.

The internet has been supplying us with plenty of interesting reading material and food for thought this past week- from the way interaction with our mobile devices is relevant for both marketing and baby-naming purposes, to how English has been shaped into an universal communication gateway.

While VOD is heralded as a growing strategy for film distribution and success stories such as that of Snowpiercer are featured more frequently, there is still a big lack of information regarding actual revenues. Rentrak updates weekly a top 10 of films performing best on VOD, but without making any revenue numbers public. It’s only a small step in the right direction as there is still much room for improvement when it comes to transparency in this area of the industry.

Back in September, Radiolab presented a story that dives into the often overlooked facet of our lives online. From ransom to taking down your competitiors, there are plenty or reasons and methods some engage in cybercrime.

By 1922, Gerald Nolst was already on to it. It’s wrong to attribute the status of English as a lingua franca to a particularly viral, well thought-out set of grammar rules. As it turns out, it’s actually pretty inconsistent, our quick learning of it by sheer exposure to British and American neocolonialism notwithstanding.

To be fair, most of us are susceptible to impressions more than we like to think or are willing to admit. If we use something often, it will probably change the way we interact with our environment. In the ecosystem of modern startups, it can be postulated that success is in correlation with leaving a lasting impression on users. In that context, I’d say Instagram did very well.